


Detail of the Fire

by searchforthescars



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, I know a thousand people have written character studies, but here i am, canon typical mentions of blood and violence, melding of manga and brotherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28303587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/searchforthescars/pseuds/searchforthescars
Summary: Their weapons of choice, their pains of choice, have always been each other. My post-FMA-exposure character study of Roy, Riza and their relationship.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Detail of the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I finished watching FMA:B in October, started reading the manga last month, and this fic has lived in my brain rent-free ever since. I'll never be fully happy with this, but it's the thought that counts, eh?
> 
> All typos and errors are my own, since this is a gift for all my potential editors lol. Title and excerpts from Richard Siken's "Detail of the Fire."
> 
> Dedicated to Jay, Lindsay and the FMA Gang aka the Vanderdonks, all of whom got me into FMA:B and who watched it with me - including my spectacular meltdowns over episodes 19, 30, 54 and 58. Happy holidays, and thank you for the gift of this story and your friendship.

This is how it began. 

The room formerly your father’s study was silent, save for the creaking floor under Roy’s feet. The noise sent shockwaves straight down your spine. 

“Are you sure?” he asked, for the third time. 

“Yes,” you said, for the third time. 

He looked away when you unbuttoned your jacket. He looked away when you let the fabric fall. He only reluctantly looked over when you cleared your throat.

“This...could take a while.” He sounded apologetic. He sounded unlike himself. “Do you- Would you like to lie down?”

You didn’t, but it was for the best. He turned his face again while you settled onto the only sitting furniture in the room, your head pillowed on your arms, face safely pressed into the musty cushion of the ancient loveseat. 

“Are-“

“Don’t ask me again. Please.”

You could hear the click of his throat as he swallowed. At the first touch of his fingers to your upper back, you nearly jumped. 

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

Hours and hours passed, so many that you fell asleep, something you didn’t realize until your aching back and protesting neck jerk you out of slumber. 

The first things you noticed were the darkness settling over the room and the cold. This was followed by the awareness of a blanket over you and the embarrassing realization that one of your hands was clutching the corner in a loose fist like a child. The other rested against something warm and moving...

“Riza?”

Roy’s voice, sleep-worn and soft, brought all the tears back from where they were nestled in the hollow of your throat. You let your hand fall from his shoulder before forcing out a soft, “Mmm?”

“You fell asleep. I didn’t want to wake you. I didn’t-“ He yawned, the interruption so boyish, so similar to what you remembered seeing a thousand times before in this very study. “I’m sorry.”

He lifted his head from where it rested against the couch cushion near your head. His tired eyes met yours, and you had the strange urge to lean into his warmth. 

_What are you sorry for?_ your eyes asked.

 _Everything_ , his eyes answered.

* * *

**A man with a bandage is in the middle of something.**

**Everyone understands this. Everyone wants a battlefield.**

This is how it began.

You hated how your heart caught in your throat at the sight of a bandage on Mustang’s face.

“What happened?” you asked, throat raw and coated with dust. You drew your dirty white coat around you and sighed, once again, at the impracticality of the light fabric contrasted against the violence all around you. It smacks of arrogance, the same arrogance that alchemist Kimblee wore as a suit of armor. 

God, you wanted to shoot him… You’d be lying if you said you hadn’t contemplated it a handful of times, usually when you were trying to sleep and he was going on and on about how good death feels to cause. It’s sickening.

“What happened?” you repeated when it became clear those far-away, dark-shaded eyes weren’t going to give you much of an answer. 

“Shrapnel. I’m alright. It’s not deep, and I cleaned it.” He answered methodically, recounting wrongs and rights as he did once upon a time when you watched him study for your father’s examinations. “Are you-”

“I’m fine.” You watched as he pulled on his ignition gloves before stopping and holding one out to you.

“My weapon of choice.” He said bitterly. 

You took the rough fabric in your equally rough palm and run your hands over the array. It’s a sparse version of the burden you bear on your back. You opened your mouth and found there was nothing you could possibly say to break the silence.

“I thought these would help people,” Mustang said, looking down. You didn't know if he’s speaking of his hands of the gloves. It wouldn’t be appropriate to ask. “I guess I was wrong.”

The rage that filled your heart made your mouth taste like ash. There was nothing but resignation in his eyes when you tossed the glove on the ground and walked away.

There might be some kind of poetry, you thought, somewhere in the image of your back still turned to him, even though it has become incredibly clear that what’s inscribed there should never be entrusted to anyone ever again.

* * *

**Red. And a little more red.**

This is how it ends.

Years later, you wash blood from the nail marks in your hands in the sparsely-lit bathrooms of Eastern Command, and your commanding officer will wait outside for you, only to catch you in the shadows on your walk home.

“Are you alright?”

The faces of Nina and Shou Tucker won’t leave your mind. There’s a burning in your stomach and a pain in your back, and you can’t shake off the ghosts of fire and needles. “I’m fine, Colonel.”

“Hawkeye.”

Something in his voice strikes a chord of pain. You turn on him, both your faces half-lit by the street lights. It’s late, and quiet, and you swear your dog can hear your thundering heart from your apartment five blocks away. 

“I think it’s unfair, sir,” you say, staring into the middle distance, “that so many sons and daughters of alchemists suffer as they have.”

Nina Tucker, killed at the hands of her father and his ambition. Ed and Alphonse Elric, abandoned by their only living family. You aren’t one to parse fairness and justice – God knows you’ve no leg to stand on in those matters, you who named yourself judge and executioner before you were even two decades old – but it hurts all the same.

“Yes,” the colonel says softly. He steps closer. You feel your shoulders stiffen, and remind yourself to stretch extra tonight. The burn scars prickle from exertion. “It is unfair. I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

You almost ask him what he means, and then you see the sorrow in his eyes. You understand. He reaches forward to touch your hands, and you let him turn one over, palm up, and press a finger to the cuts.

“All right?” he asks again, and your throat aches from holding back a scream.

“Yes, sir.”

* * *

**Accidents never happen when the room is empty.**

**Everyone understands this. Everyone needs a place.**

This is how it began.

You regarded the man to whom you entrusted your greatest secret, and you asked him to take from you that which was never yours. There was a moment when you almost took it back. When you almost considered other options, options that didn’t involve the one person you couldn’t stomach the thought of hurting.

And then you remembered how he used the gift he was given. About how much damage was wrought at the hands of someone who claimed to want goodness over bloodshed. At that thought, the twisted part of you that will always bear the brand of a killer wanted him to feel some pain at the thought of hurting one more person. Even if that person was you.

At least, if the agony on his face when you ask him to burn the array off your back is any indication, he could still feel _something_. 

Maybe one day, you thought, you’ll be able to forgive him. You knew you’d never be able to forgive yourself.

“Why me?” he asked you softly the night you knocked twice on his apartment door and he let you in with shaking hands. “There have to be other ways. Ways that won’t...won’t hurt you.”

 _That’s the point_ , you wanted to say, but saying it aloud would have only put him off the idea, and you so desperately and selfishly wanted to be rid of this burden. Either way, the pain will overwhelm you. Might as well get it over with.

“There isn’t. Do it.”

He nodded once, sharply, and pulled on his gloves.

It’s almost funny, the way history repeats itself. Once again, his hands were on your back. Once again, you shifted restlessly, preemptively against the pain you knew was coming. Once again, he asked, “Okay?” and you had to struggle to steady your voice before giving up and nodding instead.

“This will hurt.” His voice was tight, as though bracing himself for your pain. 

You’re standing this time, not lying down; he was worried about setting a surface on fire accidentally, despite your objections that you trusted his aim. You wrapped your arms around your torso. Remembered yourself. Dropped them at your side.

“Do it.”

Snap. Fire. Burn. Somehow, you kept yourself from screaming.

Many hazy hours later, when you’re situated face-down on his bed and when his hands on your shoulder blades became more coherent to you than the pain lancing through your body, you realized you were crying. He was murmuring something, words you couldn’t quite make out until you turned your face to his.

“Why me?” he asked, and the agony in his voice was almost enough to sway you toward regret.

“Who else?”

* * *

**People like to think war means something.**

This is how it ends.

You lean against the door of your apartment, staring into the shadows, Ed’s voice ringing in your ears and his boyish outrage at the colonel’s plan skittering over your memory. Black Hayate wriggles in your arms; when you set him down, he trots to the bedroom and hops up onto the bed.

Your fingers close around the soft fabric of your shirt. The loose fabric wrinkles under your grip. Silently, you thank whoever is listening that the boy wasn’t observant enough to notice the buttons are on the wrong side to be a woman’s shirt. The last thing you need is any more questions about the colonel.

You sigh into the quiet. This plan, the plan you staked your life for the better part of your twenties, is now in motion without you. Tomorrow you will report to the office using you as a chokehold, and you will have to stand in silence facing the man who has put everyone you love in danger.

The thought sickens you. You push yourself away from the door and pad toward the sounds of your dog snoring on the bed. Hayate snorts himself awake, turns to you, and sighs when you sit down so he can rest his head on your thigh.

And then the phone rings. Hayate grumbles and huffs when you stand, picking up the receiver with the practiced efficiency of someone who takes calls for a living.

“Hello?”

“Elizabeth!”

You sigh. “Colonel. You sound...happy.”

His voice falls as if you had summoned his mood change with a finger snap. “Happy is one word for it.”

“Where are you?” you ask before you can stop yourself, desperately hoping he’s not at his aunt’s bar. The last thing he needs right now is for anyone to see him at anything less than his best. None of his men are there to cover for him, and won’t be for the foreseeable future. That, more than anything, makes you nervous.

“At home.”

“Good.”

Static. You hear the rustle of something, then silence. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, voice cracking under the weight of emotion. “I never- I didn’t-”

“I know.” You steel your voice, professionalism winning out against the ache in your chest. “There’s no reason the plan can’t continue. It just may take more work. But we’re no stranger to that, Colonel, provided you can keep yourself awake at your desk.”

“For you, my queen, anything,” he says, a small laugh in his voice. You roll his eyes. “You always keep me on the right path.”

“I believe I did make a promise to that effect.”

Silence, again. You breathe in. Out. The darkness has made you brave. “Colonel?”

“Yes?”

“Make it mean something.” _Ishval. The blood on our hands. The burns on my back. The team’s separation._ “Make sure this all means something. Or this isn’t… This isn’t worth anything.”

You almost miss the whisper of your first name right before you hang up the phone. You resent the desire to clutch the sound to your chest.

* * *

**What can you learn from your opponent? More than you think.**

**Who will master this love? Love might be the wrong word.**

This is how it began.

The burning anger faded from the colonel’s eyes the moment you reaffirmed your desire to help him achieve his goals. In its place is the desolation of the bereaved. You know that look well.

“But still…” he muttered over the sound of “I will do these things because I have to” ringing in your ears. “He shouldn’t have had to die.”

“I’m sorry,” you said and then, because you always hated when people said that to you, you add, “I think he would be proud of you. He was always hounding you, same as I do.”

Mustang laughed at that, running a hand through his hair, mussing it even further. He always looked like a schoolboy when he did that, but telling him so would be improper, so you bite your tongue. “I’m surprised he never held a clandestine meeting with you about me, honestly.”

“He might have tried if he could ever get me alone.”

Mustang snorted. “You make it sound as if I have you chained to your desk, Lieutenant.”

“Sir, I think both our lives would be easier if I could chain you to yours.”

He reached up and unbuttoned the top button of his collar. “I’m going to get a drink. Do you want to come?”

You shook your head. “I don’t drink, sir.”

“Ah yes. How could I forget? Will you walk with me at least?”

He didn’t have to ask; you fell in step behind him without even thinking, and it’s only when you’re both far from the phone booth that he said, “How many members of the senior staff do you think are involved?”

You calculated for a moment before answering, “I would be surprised if the Fuhrer himself was unaware, sir.”

“On what grounds, Lieutenant?”

“Just a hunch.”

Mustang looked back at you. “You know who our enemies are as much as I do, I suppose.”

You don’t speak again until you reach your street. Hayate will be needing a walk, and your feet were sore from the heels that accompany your dress uniform, but something in Mustang’s body language gave you pause. There’s something in his eyes that brought you up short.

“Colonel, are you alright? Given the circumstances, I mean.”

Mustang reached for your hands so suddenly you couldn’t pull away. His fingers tremble around your palms. “Thank you, Hawkeye,” he said softly. “I hope you know I couldn’t do this without you.”

You could feel the hairs on the back of your neck prickling. This was too much, too close to the wrong side of propriety, and yet part of you wanted to squeeze his hands anyway, just to tell him he’s not alone. “I know, sir,” is all you said, watching his eyes close themselves off again like he had never said a word.

Your hands stung at the memory of his skin against yours. If a killer doesn’t deserve love, would the undeserved love between two of them cancel itself out?

You’ll never learn, it seems. You can see through your enemies as surely as a rifle scope, but you can’t ever see through yourself.

* * *

**Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other.**

**We know who our enemies are. We know.**

This is how it ends.

Mustang sits across from you at his kitchen table and you take his hands in yours, fully aware that the trepidation on your face is known to him only by virtue of touch. He may not see you, but he knows nonetheless, just as you know he knows by the tiny shift of his features

“What is it?” he asks.

Despite yourself, your eyes cast about the room, probing the shadows for eyes and a voice that won’t come. The space on your cheek where Pride had cut you throbs, even though the cut healed weeks ago. “Nothing. Just old habits.”

He sighs. His shoulders fall. His clouded eyes roam the room before resting on the space above your head and slightly to the left. “Are you tired, Lieutenant?”

He’s not asking if you’ve slept. You know this instinctively. “Yes. But that doesn’t matter.”

There’s a lot to do here, especially since he can’t see, but when you make to draw away from him, he holds your hands tightly. “Riza…”

“Don’t.” Your throat aches, both from the wound and the tears. “Don’t. Don’t start-”

“I’m not going to apologize. I’m going to thank you, and you’re going to let me.” He leans forward and rests his forearms against the table. “Thank you for staying alive. Thank you for staying with me.”

You stay stock still as he reaches up to touch your cheek, then your neck where the scar burns livid and red. Yet another scar he’s responsible for, you can imagine him thinking. “I do these things because I have to,” you whisper, parroting his words. “I’m not going to leave you. I made a promise.”

His unsure fingers dance over your chin, your cheek, your lips. If he was looking, he would know you kissed his hand. As it stands, he merely smiles into the space between you, up until you stand to make yourself some tea.

Come morning, you will be to one another what you always have been. That will have to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Director's cut, the soundtrack to my writing this was, in no particular order:
> 
> Going Invisible 2 - The Mountain Goats  
> In Our Bedroom After The War - Stars  
> Chasing Fire (Stripped) - Lauv  
> Poison and Wine - The Civil Wars
> 
> Thank you for reading, my friends :)


End file.
